The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for automatically removing and collecting in an orderly manner fully-spun cops from a plurality of textile ring spinning machines and, more particularly, to such a method and appartus adapted for ring spinning machines of the type wherein cops are doffed simultaneously from all spinning stations of a machine and conveyed by a transpoert arrangement longitudinally along the ring spinning machine to one longitudinal end thereof for collection.
In such ring spinning machines, a plurality of spinning stations are located along the length of the machine at each opposite longitudinal side thereof, with a transport arrangement preferably in the form of a moving belt-type conveyor extending along the length of each side of the machine to the aforesaid longitudinal end thereof. As disclosed in West German Patentschrift DE 21 38 926, it is known to provide a stationary device at the longitudinal end of such a ring spinning machine in association with each of the two conveyors thereof for grasping and removing the doffed cops in groups as they are delivered to the machine end by the conveyor and then transferring the grasped cops to a movable storage device. In a known variation of this arrangement, the groups of cops removed from the conveyors are inserted onto storage plates having cop supporting pins which plates are moved manually by means of a cart under the stationary cop removal device. Such cop removal devices are considerably expensive and therefore cannot be justified in many instances since the stationary devices are utilized for only short intermittent periods when a doffing operation occurs at the associated ring spinning machine and otherwise remain inactive for relatively long periods between doffings.
It is also known to utilize a movable cart to travel transversely with respect to the ends of a plurality of ring spinning machines to selectively deliver an automatic cop exchanging device to any individual ring spinning machine for traveling movement therealong to previously perform at each spinning station a doffing and donning operation, i.e. removal of a fully-spun cop at each spinning station and replacement thereof with an empty spinning tube. This type of device is representatively disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication 60-119233. This device is also relatively expensive, while additionally suffering the disadvantage of requiring a considerable amount of time to accomplish a complete doffing and donning operation on a ring spinning machine.
It is not uncommon in the operation of ring spinning machines, particularly when spinning wool yarn, to spin yarns of the same count but otherwise differing yarn characteristics, e.g. fiber composition, color, or the like, at different sections or different sides of the same ring spinning machine. Thus, when fully-spun cops are removed from the ring spinning machine, it is necessary to sort the cops into respective containers, magazines or the like according to the differing yarn characteristics. In order to accomplish such a sorting operation utilizing known devices, it would be necessary to utilize relatively complex apparatus to support and control the several cop containers or magazines required, which as will be understood would be prohibitively expensive, particularly in light of the relatively length periods of inactivity of such devices between cop doffing operations.
In the field of open-end rotor spinning machines, it is known to utilize a removal cart by which yarn bobbins may be automatically doffed from a group of open end spinning machines and transferred to a separate depositing cart. In this arrangement, the bobbins are guided from the spinning machine to a storage point at which the bobbins may be individually removed and inserted onto support pins ion the depositing cart by means of a grasping device on the removal cart. The removal cart carries the depositing cart in proper relative position thereto. This arrangement is representatively disclosed in West German Gebrauchsmuster 83 21 639.1. While this arrangement functions acceptably with open end spinning machines, it is considered unsuitable for use with ring spinning machines due to the significant time required for the bobbin removal and depositing operation which typically requires approximately 8 seconds to accomplish. Thus, in a ring spinning machine having hundreds of spinning positions with hundreds of yarn cops at each side of the machine, the removal and depositing of fully-spun cops from any given machine would require several hours to complete, which is an unacceptably long period.